1-2-1 World Cup is nothing to gush over

Chris Wondolowski is fortunate that fans of the U.S. soccer team seem to be more forgiving than those of other sports because his inability to beat Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois for what would have been the game-winning goal in the last minute of regulation was a major gaffe.

Chris Wondolowski is fortunate that fans of the U.S. soccer team...

So the U.S. "run" through the World Cup is over.

Well, that was fun. Or not.

I will continue to follow the World Cup to see how world-class soccer is supposed to be played. I found little pleasure in watching the U.S. get pushed around.

Now that the U.S. is out of the World Cup, can we get back to our regularly scheduled whining, moaning, and complaining about athletes? The USMNT lovefest was sickening.

This isn't some "get off my lawn" rant. As I told a friend on Twitter, this is more of a "get off my lawn selling a 1-2-1 record as the greatest thing ever" rant.

Soccer is fun to watch. Watching the U.S. win is more fun.

The U.S. women's national team has appeared in all six Women's World Cups, won it all twice, and never finished worse than third. Big fun.

The men, well … losing is not fun. Watching them get manhandled by a country about the size of the Greater Houston area is embarrassing.

The U.S. winning percentage at the World Cup was .375. The Astros' winning percentage is .419.

Which one is the bigger loser? Take your time.

The only U.S. win in four World Cup matches was over Ghana, a team so engrossed in drama that a Hollywood director has penned a treatment for a movie about the Ghanaians' World Cup adventures.

The USMNT couldn't have fared worse if Matt Schaub were quarterbacking the team.

Hold your "There isn't a quarterback in futbol, Jerome" comments.

Whatever the positions, where is the standard finger-pointing, name-calling and social media ridiculousness we see with other sports?

Remember, things got so bad for Schaub he had to delete his Twitter account when the Texans were a .500 team.

I'm not advocating said foolishness, just wondering where it is for soccer.

As the millennials say, if you don't have haters, you're not doing it right.

Well, the USMNT has almost no haters. Obviously, they aren't doing it right.

Poor showings

Michael Bradley played badly, but he was not alone. Matt Besler, for instance, would have done more to help the U.S. effort by watching Tuesday's match from a "boteco" in Brazil.

There were other no-shows as Belgium ran circles around the U.S. - which was saved by Tim Howard's brilliant play in goal - and took twice as many shots as the Americans. Still, the U.S. had a chance.

Missed opportunity

Chris Wondolowski's miss in the latter stages against Belgium, a shot that would have almost certainly won the match and sent the U.S. to the quarterfinals of the tournament, should go down in history as an all-time blunder.

(Google Jackie Smith, Bill Buckner, Earnest Byner and Scott Norwood.)

"It's like an old saying in our family: 'You get the glory when you score, and you've got to take the responsibility when you miss,' " his brother, Stephen Wondolowski, a former Dynamo player, told the San Jose Mercury News. "It might be fair or unfair, but that is just the life of being a forward.

"I know Chris is going to get past it. But I don't think everybody else will get past that. That's just sports."

Um, not true. Many got past it as soon as it happened.

Even the reaction on typically over-the-top Twitter was mild, with not a single negative comment to Chris Wondolowski's post saying he was "gutted to have let everyone down." Not one.

Soccer zealots and media fanboys are an amazing lot. They pull out the kid gloves for soccer, something they don't do for any other sport.

Not even for Olympic sports in which the U.S. has no business participating. Why is that?

We act as if soccer is a foreign sport. There are soccer fields everywhere.

It's un-American

Heck, you might be reading this from a smartphone while watching your son or daughter on the pitch.

All this grass dedicated to a sport, and the best the U.S. can do is not lose by a lot?

And we're supposed to be proud of one win, two losses and a draw?

Not in my America.

Listen to "The Rush" with Jerome Solomon and Dave Tepper from noon-2 p.m. weekdays on 97.5 FM.